Here is a detailed follow up to the tournament three weeks ago:
This was my Griffin Daily News column for last Sunday – a little late posting it here.
I had been to Weiss and Wedowee in Alabama the week before the tournament and my article the day of the tournament said I would be throwing topwater since that had worked so well at those Alabama lakes. My partener had won the other club I am in on Oconee three weeks earlier – I came in 4th.
GEORGIA'S GREAT OUTDOORS
April 18, 2010
Ronnie Garrison
After my visits to Alabama lakes week before last, I was all fired up to fish the Flint River April tournament at Lake Oconee. I just knew topwater baits would draw strikes and help me catch a winning stringer of bass. But, as usual, the tournament didn’t go exactly as planned.
My partner Al Rosser and I started on the bank where the Sportsman Club tournament was won three weeks earlier, and Al quickly caught a nice striper on a jerk bait. I threw two different topwater plugs and did get two hits but did not hook a fish. After almost two hours of fishing that area we had no keepers in the boat and I was very frustrated.
At 9:00 AM I ran across the creek to a bank I had never fished before. It just seemed right, for some reason. After going around one pocket without a bite we started out of it and a solid 3 pound bass ate my chatter bait made here in Griffin by Terry Lee. I felt a little better, one nice keeper in the boat at 9:30. Within a few minutes Al got a keeper on a spinner bait.
As we worked into the next cove I threw a Texas rigged lizard with its tail dipped in JJ’s Magic dip and dye, and, after a cast right on the bank, realized my line was moving out toward the boat. I reeled as fast as I could and set the hook, and a nice four pound bass came to the top and spit my lizard back at me. My heart sank. It is awful to lose a nice fish like that.
We started catching some 13 inch bass, too small to keep on Oconee. As we neared a dock on a point another bass boat came running in off the creek and I thought they were going to stop right ahead of us, but they turned and left. I know why they wanted to fish it. My first pitch to the corner of the dock produced a keeper bass. Two in the boat at 10:00 AM.
I caught three more short bass off that dock. Then, on the next dock, I felt a thump and set the hook. Something heavy pulled back, left a wash tub size boil in the water, and came off. There was that sinking feeling again!
A little further I saw a pole sticking up out in front of a dock and cast to it. Poles like that often mean a stump in the water, and I landed keeper number threee by it. We then turned and worked back over the same area can caught some more short fish.
Back at the dock where I caught the four fish nothing hit in front of it. It was a "U" shaped dock with a big ski boat on a lift in the slip. I pitched over the walkway into the area in front of the boat and got a thump. When I set the hook a strong fish pulled back. I tried to tell Al to get out on the dock with the net but there was no time. I pulled a 3.5 pound bass over the walkway and into the boat. A very lucky number four went into the live well at 11:00.
We went back by the place I had lost the good one earlier and the same thing happened. My line started moving out and I reeled as hard as I could and set the hook. The bass was back under the boat but I landed this three pound keeper. That gave me my limit of five at about noon.
We fished hard the rest of the day and caught a lot of short fish, and one more keeper that was the same size as one of my smallest fish.
At weigh-in at 3:00 PM the 19 fishermen in the Flint River Bass Club April tournament brought in 36 keepers weighing about 70 pounds. There were five limits and eight people didn’t weigh a keeper, although several had one or two fish and didn’t weigh them knowing they would not be enough to place.
My five weighed 12.34 pounds and gave me first place, and the 3.54 pound bass I drug over the boat dock walkway was big fish. Lee Hancock placed second with five at 10.95 pounds, Bobby Ferris was third with five weighing 9.95 pounds and Jack Ridgeway had five weighing 9.79 pounds for fourth.
Most of my bass were very skinny and looked like they had already spawned out. One of the 13 inch bass we caught was under a cloud of small minnows and looked like it was guarding fry. Although a lot of bass have spawned, another big wave of bedding bass will move into the shallows on the full moon on April 28. Fishing should be good in shallow water from now on through the middle of May.
The Spalding County Sportsman Club is at West Point today. Guess I will be throwing a Texas rigged lizard with its tail dipped in JJ's Magic!
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Till next time, Gone Fishin'!
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